Pi-Consulting

“Every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better. Every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better. Every day….”. Devotees of TCOYL (i.e. Taking Control Of Your Life) are supposed to repeat such things to themselves as a self-motivating mantra.

The New Year is upon us. 2006, you will be told, is the beginning of the rest of your life. A plethora of advice, finger-wagging and cajolery will be underpinned by the compelling thought that there is money to be made by the purveyors of health and fitness.

With the arrival of the New Year, dieting fads will grip the public imagination again, as they do every year. Health-food sales will soar. Health-club membership rosters will swell like Schwarzenegger’s pectorals. Ashtrays will be firmly hidden in the cupboard under the stairs. Trainers, squash racquets and jogging suits will fly off the shelves of sports-goods stores. “The body is a temple” will once again be a prevailing journalistic and commercial theme-line.

And worship we will, for a while. In some people’s lives, fitness-fanaticism has colonised the place that used to be reserved for religious piety. Journalist Lucy Kellaway, (in an insightful Financial Times article) visited one of London’s new personal training gyms. When she emerged, it was with “the realisation that this place wasn’t a gym at all. It was a CHURCH”.

The faith will certainly make new converts this year. Indeed quite a high proportion of European men already claim regular active involvement in some physical sport or other. In France and Britain, participation levels hover around the 50% mark. However, over half as many again claim to have a keen interest in sport, when what they really mean is WATCHING sport on TV, or reading about it in newspapers and magazines. A significant chunk of sporting activity, it seems, takes place on the couch, six-pack and snack-foods in hand.

That’s part of the problem. It’s not just what we do, but what we eat. Where diet is concerned, consciences are already stirring around the European continent. Over 50% of women in Spain, France and Britain believe they should be “doing more about their health”, though only two-fifths of their sisters in Germany admit to this kind of health-concern.

How much good is this actually doing for their figures? Sadly, less than you might imagine. It seems that less than a third of European women pay heed to the calorie content of what they eat. Worrying about our weight, and doing something about it, appear to be two separate things.

Recent research suggests that humanity is biologically programmed to eat food in quantity when it’s available. Tomorrow, says our collective biological memory, there may not be any. Fixing this problem may mean we need genetic readjustment. None of these gloomy ruminations, however, will impede us from pledging our virtuous resolutions in the New Year. How long will the mood last? Well, how long do virtuous resolutions ever last?

“Every day, and in every way….”. You’re right, this website doesn’t believe it either. It will probably take more than a week of post-holiday remorse to get Western society off its backside for long.